I have finally bitten the bullet and went for it! I willow be selling original prints from my first solo show, Collodion Obscura, on Etsy.As much as I love these prints, they deserve a good home.Click the button below to find my shop.

Back in August I had the pleasure of meeting Denis Pellerin at 3D Con, and couple of months later the asked if I wanted to be apart of The London Stereoscopic Companies online 3D Gallery. Of course I couldn't pass on the opportunity and said YES.I wanted to do something that I have yet to explore when it comes to setero-tintypes.I wanted to create a short story.My dad and I and my friend Dave, came up with the idea of someone discovering stereographs for the first time. I personally haven't seen this done on old stereographs (if any collectors read this, have you?) and thought it would be a fun one.Thanks to Dave and Vince for modeling.To view these, you can use an OWL viewer or a Loreo Viewer or a viewer you have gotten if you gotten a stereo-tintype done by me.​Happy Viewing!

Hello! Now that I have made my blog post about my 3D-Con experience and introducing stereo-tintypes to my art and business, doing a picture blog post about my camera only seems fit. After doing some research on the camera, I have speculated that its an E&H Anthony Champion Field Camera, which was produced 1890-1895. Is originally was used to for 4x5 or 5x7 dry plates, but my friend Dave modified the back for wet plate.​

We keep a ground glass paper mat inside the camera to help composition before we take the tintype.

My plate holder! Also made by Dave. Inside the plate holder we have home-made plate inserts that are made out of acrylic and silver wire.

These two sets of Darlot lenses is what we mainly use for stereo-tintype portraiture.

We have another set of lenses for the stereo camera and they are also Darlot lenses but they are a rapid rectilinear lenses.

Each of the lenses came with their original brass lens caps. After a few test tries we realized that taking off each individual lens cap kept shaking the camera and each side of the picture had not close enough exposure time. My dad and I did some research and found different ways photographers made shutters for their cameras. We decided to do a simple flap shutter with knobs on each end for easy turning .Picture demonstration of the flap shutter my dad and I built.As you have probably notice, we have our waterhouse stops in front of the glass of the lens. The Darlot lenses are too early to have slots for apertures! On its own is was an f/3 and we had a hard time getting really anything in focus, so we decided to make an f/5.6 waterhouse stop out of the same materials as the plates we use. It does cause some vignetting, but personally I like it. Also most of it gets cut out when we assemble a portrait into our mattes

Last but not least, we had to make a darkcloth special for this camera. When I received my first wet plate camera many years ago it came with an antique darkcloth with a hole cut out towards the end of the drape for the lens to stick through. I took this idea and got some black non see through cloth and cotton fabric to go on top and had an oblong shape cut in the fabric. Its really useful when wind is blowing and you don't have to hassle with clips! If you enjoyed these types of blog posts, let me know!

Before I wanted to introduced stereo-tintypes as an art form and into my small business, I knew I had to make sure that my guest left with a viewer. So my father found Berezin Stereo Photography Products online and we ordered some Lorgnettes to hand out with each portrait, when they arrived, inside the packaging was a flyer for 3D-Con"Huh, wouldn't it be interesting to set up there?"From there, I like to think that chaos in-sewed. ​

Last year I was gifted a stereo-camera from my good friend Dave, along with a pair of Darlot (don't know that year unfortunately, no serial number is engraved in the lens) portrait lenses. I knew from the start that this was something I wanted to incorporate into my art and my small business. So my dad and I came up with a way to display the tintypes and how to cut plates on site. Next was to figure out our scene. I knew I wanted to keep a historical look. I found the perfect backdrop and next came the furniture, luckily I was able to borrow and settee and a traditional posing table (Thanks Dave!). The stereo-tintypes pictured below feature my friend, Zoe, who on a day to day basis dresses like she's from 1860-1920's. It was recommended to me by the head of the Trade Fair for 3D-Con, David Richardson, that I take examples of my set up to display what I would be bringing to the con, so everyone that attended would get an idea of what the set up would be for portraits.

Stereo-Tintype, 3 second exposure

Stereo-Tintype, 3 second exposure

I can truly say, that 3D-Con was the busiest two days of my photography career thus far. Between the dates of August 12&13 my dad and I created 34 stereo-tintypes. A new record for us. Also a new record for how much I can tolerate the smell of ether!I have met some really wonderful people and so happy that everyone was patient when it came to change of lighting or just over-run by people wanting to see how the wet plate process worked. Saturday was the best day out of the two, the early morning was nice and overcast, so I had no need to use of the pop up canopy.......up until maybe around 12:30 the sun started to pop out and had to use the canopy for shade. Luckily I was able to take some pictures on phone of some of the good results.

While my dad and I were outside with the darkroom, my mum was inside the Trade Fair handling our small display table with examples and a history about the Wet Plate process. Thank you Mum!

All in all, I'm very happy that I was able to make it to 3D-Con. The past couple of months and especially August, I haven't been doing well from a complication from my chronic-illness, and the same week as 3D-Con I ended up having a medical procedure done and then hopped back to work. Although this site is dedicated to my art and work, I feel like its important to talk about how some artists out there have chronic illnesses (like me) and how it can stand in the way of creating art (will have to dive into this topic another day) I want to thank everyone that had been around me that weekend, I hope to keep in contact with the many people I have met. Until next time!

​Thats right!! C.A.S. Photography is headed to 3d Con located in Irvine, CA at the Irvine Hotel. you can come have a stereo-tintype done by us August 12&13 at their Trade Fair, which is open to the public. Message me if you have any questions!​Hope to see you there.